Musicians On Call
Bedside Troubadours Sing a Song of Healing
By Dawn Fallik
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(MCT)
PHILADELPHIA - Lizanne Knott usually sings about burning skies and hearts afire. But last week, the co-owner of the MorningStar studio had a cheat sheet for "Baby Beluga" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" taped to the top of her guitar.
For two hours, she went from room to room on an oncology floor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where children tethered to tubes requested songs about fire trucks and the ever-favorite Barney.
"I do a lot of `I love you, you love me,'" Knott said as she ducked her gleaming-blond head under the guitar strap and stepped around an IV pole.
Hospital entertainment, when there is any, usually takes the form of small classical concerts or new-age music on TV. But a handful of medical centers in Philadelphia and New York City are trying a new approach - relaxation by rock star.
Staffed by local artists, the Musicians on Call program offers patients too sick to leave their rooms their very own, albeit very short, bedside serenade.
The program developed after liposarcoma was diagnosed in the daughter of one of Bruce Springsteen's managers. The Kristen Ann Carr Fund paid for research as well as some hospital entertainment. When a hospital staffer pointed out that some patients could not go to those larger gatherings because of infection risks, the idea of room-to-room concerts was born.
But now Knott was stumped, standing in front of a wispy-haired 5-year-old with leukemia. Hailey Herbert wanted a song about chocolate-chip cookies.
This required some quick thinking. While Hailey described the guitar Santa had brought her, Knott reached into her musical memory and pulled out a song about a relationship gone bad. The melody was punchy; she made up new lyrics:
I like a warm cookie, baked to a perfect taste.
I can't let a cookie go to waste.
Hailey sat transfixed, and after the song ended she jumped out of bed and announced, "I want to be a rock star!"
Knott and the 30 other local musicians all volunteer through WXPN-FM (88.5), the alternative radio station run by the University of Pennsylvania.
Each of the participating hospitals - the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Children's, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital - hosts an artist a week on a particular floor. The performers often spend two hours there, playing one or two songs per patient.
"We really work hard to screen the musicians, because they have to have talent and personality and be able to put someone at ease," said Michael Hill, the program's director of volunteers in New York. "They have to walk into a room and make everyone comfortable."
Most of the artists sing and play guitar, some bring a keyboard, and all play a variety of music.
Finding artists to work with children is particularly challenging, Hill said, because those who play heavy metal or hard rock tend not to know many Wiggles or Barney songs.
Kenli Mattus, one of the original New York volunteers, said requests ranged from gospel to Eminem. But the top demand is the Temptations' "My Girl."
The program brings a little bit of art, Mattus said, into a world that is often, both literally and figuratively, sterile.
"When you're in the hospital, you're getting what you need for your illness, but you're really not getting anything you want," she said.
And getting what you want can be healing.
Numerous studies have shown that music affects health, from slowing heartbeats to easing pain. In May, a study from the Cleveland Clinic found that people who listened to music for an hour every day for a week reduced chronic pain up to 21 percent.
But Musicians on Call might be better than a concert, said Valerie Stratton, who studies music and mood at Pennsylvania State University at Altoona.
In her studies, she found that people who chose their own music were more relaxed than those whose music was chosen for them.
"It's like that hospital channel that's supposed to be very relaxing, with fields and flowers," Stratton explained. "My husband found it very depressing."
But music often strikes an emotional chord.
At Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, musician and La Salle University psychology professor David Falcone follows his guide from room to room. The guide asks the patients whether they'd like a song. That way, the patients feel more comfortable saying no.
Last week, John Byrne said yes.
The 48-year-old from Southampton, N.J., had been at Jefferson for three months under treatment for acute leukemia. Sitting alone behind a door covered with "Caution" signs, he welcomed Falcone like an old friend - it was the third time he had seen the musician.
In the darkened room, Falcone played Jefferson Airplane's "Embryonic Journey." Byrne began to cry.
"The first time I heard him play, it was the first night I was admitted here," he said. "It was just a moment I'll never forget."
Byrne said he would be in the hospital for 10 more weeks, awaiting a bone-marrow transplant.
"Next time," he said. "I'd like to hear `Amazing Grace.'"